"Clear Skies" doesn't fly; EPA forced to regulate polluters

The Environmental Protection Agency enacted a new rule Thursday intended to significantly reduce levels of health-damaging ozone and soot caused by emissions from power plants in the East and Midwest.

The long-awaited Clean Air Interstate Rule -- viewed as the most substantial tightening of air quality standards since the Clean Air Act was last amended in 1990 -- is expected to save thousands of lives each year and prevent the loss of millions of workdays annually because of pollution-related heart attacks, asthma and other health problems.

The rule, to be phased in over the next decade, sets caps for the release of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides from power plant smokestacks in 28 states and Washington, D.C. To meet the goals, many plants will have to install new scrubbers and other emissions-capturing technologies.
  SF Gate article

Plants that can't meet the deadline can buy credits from plants that are ahead of schedule. What I don't know is if that is a permanent thing - whether any plant that doesn't meet the regulation will be able to buy credits from those that can. In that case, it will most likely create a situation where there are some plants that had the financial ability to install the new technology selling credits to those that can't come up with the outlay for whatever reason(s). Then we'll have pockets of cleaner air and pockets of polluted air, which will not stay in place, of course. If that is in fact the way the law will work, in the end, I would expect that the reduction of pollution to be less than the EPA's projection. And yet, it is at least a beginning.

The EPA determined last year that 160 million people in 450 counties in 32 states were living in areas that violated levels for airborne particulates and smog.

Officials have said they will release next week a rule restricting the other major power plant pollutant, mercury. That rule is far more controversial and is likely to be challenged in court.

The Clean Air Interstate and mercury rules, which had been languishing at the EPA, rose to sudden prominence Wednesday when a congressional committee failed to advance the Bush administration's "Clear Skies" initiative. The legislation -- which President Bush had argued was superior to Thursday's administrative action, in part because it was less likely to get hung up in a tangle of lawsuits -- was widely disparaged by environmental groups as a fundamental weakening of the Clean Air Act.

I wonder if Bush is so averse to lawsuits (both domestic and international) because of his own "tangles" with the law in his formative years.

I also wonder why the World Bank or IMF can't loan us the money to clean up our polluting industries. They make loans to third world countries all the time.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.